Federal Elections Commission fines Ted Cruz '92 $35,000

Cruz '92 secured another six years in the Senate during the midterm election in Texas.

Courtesy of Michael Vadon via Wikimedia Commons

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has fined Texas Senator Ted Cruz ’92 $35,000 for inaccurately reporting upwards of $1 million in loans from Goldman Sachs and Citibank during his 2012 U.S. Senate race.

According to The New York Times, the Campaign Legal Center filed a report against Cruz as a response to his inaccurate reports in January 2016. The FEC then agreed that the Cruz campaign had not followed the law in a unanimous vote.

The $35,000 fine was settled upon by Cruz’s Senate campaign and the FEC, over three years after the initial claim was brought to light. The Campaign Legal Center was notified of the penalty in a letter from the FEC in March.

Cruz had classified the $1 million as personal funding, The New York Times reported. He originally claimed that he used his family’s wealth, saying in a 2013 New York Times interview that he and his wife agreed to “liquidate” the family’s “entire net worth” to fund his 2012 Senate campaign. Cruz actually received $264,000 from Citibank and $800,000 from Goldman Sachs. He failed to report these sources to the FEC.

The FEC oversees all political campaign activity. Candidates receiving loans or lines of credit from commercial lenders must report all details of the loan to the FEC.

The New York Times reported that Cruz has called the situation a “clerical oversight.”

Cruz had reported the loans correctly in filings with the Senate. However, these filings did not specify what the loans were used for, and candidates are required to report separately to the FEC.

“As has repeatedly been reported, the loans were public at the time and fully disclosed on Senate ethics disclosures, but they weren’t reported correctly on the FEC forms,” said Catherine Frazier, the spokeswoman for the Cruz campaign, in a statement to The Hill. “This agreed settlement resolves that filing mistake once and for all.”

Donald Trump also commented on the misstep during the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, saying that Goldman Sachs had “total control” over Cruz.